The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 31

Saturday, Sept. 14, 1991 The Top contenders for Miss America Daily Specials 0" mi Is 1 Shrimp Scampi with Seasoned Rice Bread Basket Served all day 495 VALID thru September 15. 1991 Present this COUPON when Ordering CLIP AND SAVE Fettuccine Alfredo if i lilfes 4 and Shrimp Includes Salad Bowl VALID thru September 15. 1991 Present this COUPON when Ordering CLIP AND SAVE L. MISS AMERICA, from 1-C future of America, the greatest land on Earth.) The highest and lowest points are always tossed out in all scoring.

Why? We don't know. These judges pick the top 10 contestants, and determine the three preliminary talent winners and the three preliminary swimsuit winners, one of whom is generally Miss A. Though not always. And perhaps not this year. Confused yet? There's more.

Tonight a new panel of judges steps in but Delta Burke will not be among them. Miss Florida 1974 isn't feeling her perky Miss A best, has a cold and will not show. (This is what passes for big news this year.) She has been replaced by Lee Meriwether, Miss America 1955. The other judges are actor Paul Sorvino; soprano Kathleen Battle; Mortimer B. Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of US.

News and World Report; actor Patrick Wayne; Miss A 1958, Marilyn Van Derbur, and Grammy producer Pierre Cossette. group judges the top 10 contestants in talent (40 points), swim-suit (15) and evening gown (15). No direct questions will be asked of them on stage this year, even though the pageant continues to stress intelligence and the fact that it is a scholarship program. The 30 points from their preliminary interviews will be carried over. Once again, the high and low judging scores in each segment are tossed out.

Why? Haven't a clue. From all this confusion, the judges will select the inner sanctum, the Top Five. Then for absolutely the first time ever! Regis and Kathie Lee! will hold an absolutely impromptu and spontaneous "rap session" (in the kaffeeklatschtalk-show sense of the phrase and not to be confused with black urban music), which will be the first and only time, other than shouting their states, that the voices of the cream of American womanhood will be heard throughout the land. For this effort, they will be awarded 10 points. Truly confused? Me, too.

But all the hooey boils down to this: Without talent, you're sunk in this pageant. Without a good brain and strong resume, it's unlikely you'll go far. And while this is the thinnest and most physically groomed set of contestants in pageant history, looks are definitely a distant third in what matters. So who are the top contenders? tumiumtuiivuMvuitmimnaimtt 5-C BROILED OR FRIED Scallops with Potato, Salad Bread Basket Served all day 5795 $795 and Bread Basket Opens Tuesday! Winner 5 Tony Awards "The Best Dancing on Broadway!" GRAND HOTEL Directed Choreographed by Tommy Tune Tues Wed-Fn 8PM: Sat 2 8PM: Sun 2 i Tickets: $19.50 $46 00 Group Discounts: 732-5997 For Intormation: 732-5446 SHUBERT THEATER Univ. ol tha Art 250 3.

Broad Strati Charge by Phone: J15-336-2000 Bold season opener! 3 weeks only! Oct. 4-27 PHILADELPHIA THEATRE COMPANY presents the Philadelphia Premiere of Dennis Mclntyre's NATIONAL ANTHEMS A wealthy young lawyer and his beautiful wife are plunged into battle for the American Dream. "Theatrically powerful!" New Haven Register THE PHILADELPHIA THEATRE COMPANY At Ptayt 6 Playart Thaatra, 1714 Dataneay SL (215) 7354M1 lor Hi, oabocrtritkira, group dacowit. Extended by Popular Demand thru Sept 29th The Funniest Musical Comedy in Town "NUNSENSE" Friday Saturday at 8PM Sunday at 3PM Dinner Packages Available $30 SOCIETY HILL PLAYHOUSE CABARET 507 South 8th 8t PhHa. (215) 923-0210 Haddonfield Plays Players presents WUTHERING HEIGHTS Sept 14, 20.

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14 15 at 2 pm Tickets: students seniors PLAYS 4 PLAYERS 1714 Delancey St. Call (215) 735-0630 Philadelphia Inquirer pronounced overbite. She's bound to make the Top Five. There isn't a single dazzling dancer this year, and all the musicians, other than the pianists, failed to shine. Miss Iowa, Lisa Somodi, is the third preliminary talent winner for her piano playing, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Iowa who is interested in film scoring.

(Following in the tradition of the reigning Miss, Marjorie Judith Vincent, a pianist, all the keyboard-playing contestants are wearing gowns with amazing trains.) But Somodi faces some tough competition from the other pianists here: Miss Washington So Young Kwon (a classics major contemplating law school), and the statuesque Miss Utah Elizabeth Anne Johnson, who is 6-feet-4 in heels and won swimsuit Thursday. The two other swimsuit winners are Miss Louisiana, Christi Page, who does a crowd-pleasing version of "Great Balls of Fire," and Miss Hawaii, Carolyn Suzanne Sapp, who has an interesting problem. She's too sexy. Miss A's are not supposed to be too sexy. Pretty? Yes.

Beguiling? Sure. But sex, as it's been noted, has almost nothing to do with being Miss A. Just in case you are one of the four or so people tuning in to look at the swimsuit segment, the other pageant bodies of death are Miss New Jersey Amy Fissel (but she's an Eagles cheerleader and no scholar), Miss' Oklahoma Gina-Lynne Smith, Miss Arizona Darsi Lynn Turner, Miss Texas Rhonda Rene Morrison, Miss Virginia Sheri Huffman, Miss Kansas Robbin Lee Wasson, Miss California Paige Adams and Miss Florida Mary-Ann Olson. We do know who has the best smile: Miss Alaska Beth Ann Gustaf-son, who was awarded Natural White's $10,000 Smile of Confidence Scholarship. Two of the pageant's greatest beauties are the two youngest contestants, Miss Montana Jeni Ramseth and Miss Nevada Malia Winn.

Both are 17 and have yet to be over-groomed and have all their natural loveliness bleached or starved out of them. But entering college freshmen haven't got much of a chance competing against 25-year-old lawyers and opera singers. (Toward this end, pageant CEO Leonard Horn is lowering the age limit from 26 to 24 in 1993.) But here's the real hard part. The strongest candidates, other than Miss New York, have not won preliminaries. Should one of these young women win, it would be the first time a non-preliminary winner has worn the rhinestone crown since Miss A 1979, Kylene Barker.

But if you asked who would make the best Miss who are the contestants who shine in all categories, it boils down to Montalvo and these three: Miss Illinois Cheryl Lynn Majercik Miss Oklahoma, Gina-Lynne Smith, is a marketing major at Oklahoma State. is a tremendous opera singer, a dedi cated AIDS volunteer, and a terrific person to talk to. She's also the con testant with the strongest Philadel phia connections, having received her bachelor's and master's degrees in opera performance from the Curtis Institute of Music. She worked at the Victor Cafe, Boyd's, elan, Bistro St. Tropez, DiLullo Centro and 16th Street Bar and Grill.

Majercik won the $10,000 Fruit of the Loom Quality of Life Award on Tuesday and donated the entire amount to a Chicago AIDS organization. Miss Mississippi Mary Allison Hur dle, in addition to being lovely, has a sweet operatic voice. It's nowhere near as powerful or professional as Majerick's or Montalvo's, but then Hurdle studied accounting at Ole Miss and plans to be a CPA the perfect follow-up to a lawyer and vet, the chosen professions of the last two Miss A's. Miss Oklahoma Gina-Lynne Smith is an Oklahoma State marketing senior who wants to run a nonprofit organization. Smith is one of the best popular singers, performing "Something's Coming" and "Somewhere" from West Side Story.

She's very pretty, outspoken, talkative and friendly. So here's the prediction for Top 10: New York, Illinois, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Washington, Louisiana, Iowa, Maryland, Hawaii and Utah. Or maybe Texas. Perhaps Georgia. Or Colorado.

All we do know is education is the key to our future. NEED A GOOD LAUGH? CALL COMEDY CABARET Some clubs have to work on comedy We deliver the most laughs! The East Coast's BIGGEST BEST Comedy Club Chain! Area Locations BENSALEMNORTHEAST PHILLY Call 676-J-O-K-E DOYLESTOWNWARMINSTER Call 345-J-O-K-E KING OF PRUSSIAVALLEY FORGE Call 265-2030 CHERRY HILL (609) 666-6581 WILMINGTON DE (302165-A-M-U-S-E Call main offlca (215) 32-C-O-KM-C (322-6642) GASLIGHT MYSTERY THEATRE presents MURDER AT MORIARTY'S "A lot ol fun. with line tjinnet thrown lor good measure" Saturday at 8 00 PM Tickets $34 50 Match wils with Sherlock Holmes and enioy a 4 course dinner. Morlarty'a Restaurant 1116 Walnut 81. (215) 835-3950 or 627-7676 ALL ABOARD! FRI-SAT-SUN MURDER on the BROADWAY LTD.

Philly's First Musical Who Dun It PERFECT BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION CAVANAUGH'S RESTAURANT 38th Sanaom, Univ. City (21S) 662-5000 mm Saturday. September 14 8 pmS10 and $6 THE HUNTINGDON TRIO with guest artists from the Netherlands Walter Hekster. clarinet Alice Hekster. bassoon Works Iberl.

Hekster, Skimauewski and Ekjar Ethical Society Building 1906 Rlttanhouaa Squara Into: 985-0863 Tomorrow, One Performance Only! GEORGE JONES Sweethearts Of The Rodeo Sunday (7pm), $20.00 VALLEY FORGE MUSIC FAIR Rt. 202, Oavon, PA. (215) 640-9230 Thomas' wife faces controversy as well 1991 ITEMS ARE ON SALE Miss Illinois Cheryl Lynn Majercik, is an opera singer and AIDS volunteer. Miss Maryland Debra Renea Fries has one of the most amazing talents ever seen on the Convention Center stage, and received close to a Standing Thursday night. She's a twirler.

You laugh, but she's an amazing twirler. She's twirls with her ears! She twirls with her nose! She's the best darn twirler on the planet the 1981 World Baton Twirling Champion, the winner of 1,200 championships and has developed a series of baton rolls that look like magic tricks and are named after her! The winner of Thursday's talent competition, she's also a teacher of the deaf and was once anorexic and bulimic. She is shy, though. Miss A's don't tend to be quiet. Miss New York, Marisol A.

Mon-talvo, is hard to beat. She's a professional opera singer, and a truly emotional performer. The only black and Hispanic in the pageant, Montalvo is the eldest of seven children raised by a postal worker. This stands out in a program dominated by women from middle- and upper-middle-class homes. She's also a strong interview, outspoken about being called ugly for most of her life and still having a and took action to extricate herself," Daub said.

She even hid out in another part of the country to avoid constant phone calls from fellow trainees. Since 1985 Ginni Thomas has been a public advocate against cult activities. When she was a labor-relations attorney at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 1985 to 1989, Ginni Lamp represented the interests of the business community at congressional hearings. Acting on behalf of the chamber, she led the opposition to the Family and Medical Leave Act, which would have required companies with 50 employees or more to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave and continued medical benefits to employees at the time of childbirth or a medical emergency.

In June 1985, at least a year before she met Clarence Thomas, Ginni Lamp found herself allied with the EEOC chairman in his rejection of comparable worth. During the spring of 1986, they both turned up at an Anti-Defamation League civil-rights colloquium at the end of the session, traveled back to Washington together. They soon became engaged and were married by the following summer. (Thomas had been amicably divorced from his first wife, Kate Ambush, in 1984.) She lights him up. He makes her feel like the most important person on the planet.

He jokes. She laughs. Friends and neighbors said the interracial nature of their marriage was irrelevant. "I can guarantee you I was surprised when I found out she was going with a black man," Ginni Thomas' uncle Ralph Knop said from his farm in Iowa. "It was unusual for us." The couple lives in a three-bedroom suburban house in Alexandria, with Clarence Thomas' 19-year-old son, Jamal, from his first marriage.

Although Clarence Thomas was reared a Roman Catholic, the couple regularly attend the Truro Episcopal Church, a charismatic congregation in which the majority of the congregants oppose abortion. They like to drive to work together. She calls him Batman because of his new black Corvette. He sends her flowers when her job at the Labor Department becomes stressful. They go on morning runs.

They take after-dinner walks. Neighbors say you can see them in the evening talking, walking up the hill. Hand in hand. twQwur tnd Dtrty Nwno, 1 1-21 off Z0-7IJ on20-70 ofj ii it tm Mnr'mri i CAR RACK ROLLER BLADES EXERCISE EQUIPMENT ALL REDUCED FOR CLEARANCE MIMMIIH.W em mnipama 40.fir4iowiaiww.wtj mmmwmm'mummmim mmm mm mrann 1 1 immmmwmmmimmmmmimtk mimmvmimiiy.ifiummJimfv c- FEATURING A THOMAS, from 1-C Adams, chairman of Howard University's department of Afro-American studies. "Great justices have had community roots that served as a basis for understanding the Constitution.

Clarence's lack of a sense of community makes his nomination troubling." Ginni Thomas is a tall woman, with brown curls, blue eyes and a smile that makes you smile. She grew up in Omaha, the youngest of four children. Her parents, Donald and Marjorie Lamp, were upper-middle-class Republican Party insiders who stressed family and religion. She went to Jesuit-run Creighton University in Omaha and received a bachelor's degree in business communications and political science. She attended Creighton's law school in the early 1980s and, as always, excelled.

She studied constantly but managed to find time to help organize several campaigns for local Republicans, among them Hal Daub. Freshman congressman Daub arrived in Washington in January 1981 with his star volunteer in tow. During the early '80s, Virginia Thomas enrolled in Lifespring, a self-help course that challenges students to take responsibility for their lives. A small percentage of the program's 300,000 graduates have been deeply disturbed by Lifespring's methods, which involve intense emotional self-examination. Thomas told a Washington Post reporter in 1987 that she was confused and troubled by some of Lifespring's exercises.

In one session, trainees listened to "the Stripper" while disrobing to skimpy bikinis and bathing suits. The group stood in a U-shaped line, made fun of fat people and riddled one another with sexual questions. "At first Ginni was feeling pretty good and enthusiastic about Life-spring," recalls her minister, the Rev. Rodney Wilmoth of St. Paul United Methodist Church in Omaha.

"But later she was concerned about its influence and began to sense the organization had a cultlike mentality." Terry Nelson, vice president of Life-spring, said the group was not a cult and that Virginia Thomas' account of the training exercises had been taken out of context It took Thomas months to break fully from Lifespring's "high-pressure tactics," she told the Post in 1987. Finally, Daub, Thomas' boss, confronted her. "We talked about it, and ultimately she thought it through PHAGE. YUn SEil? BIB I Salomon Boots Marker Bindings Salomon Bindings A Car Rack An Exercise Bike Roller Blades Trek Bicycle Specialized Bicycle Giant Bicycle Raleigh Bicycle A Bicycle Frame A Mongoose Bicycle FALL CALENDAR EiMTSj rW -'w, "-Jr''-' Tuifi afim" ii' tJiaJii arMfjaj vjt v-iT CLINIC Rossignol Skis Atomic Skis Elan Skis DynastarSkis Nordica Boots Lange Boots USED BIKE SALE Sat. 921 Sale Terms: Cash Check MCVisa DiscoverMac All Sales Final PSIlS teapajpaagaajaajaaaj jll'.

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